Truth & Lies
by Renee2939
Summary: Set post Chosen and NFA. Buffy deals, or not. Completed.
1. Day

BtVS, AtS

Story Notes: Set post Chosen and NFA. Buffy POV.  
A/N: Apologies to all for any grammatical errors or just plain wrongness. Feedback is always appreciated. -Edited after feedback by a reader. See, I do read your suggestions and take them seriously. So don't be shy.  
Disclaimer: Not mine. Never gonna be mine. Not making a profit here either.

_**DAY**_

During the day she lied. For no reason at all. Just to see if she could. Face them full on, seem sincere, and lie for all you're worth.

_I don't think you betrayed me.  
I understand.  
I couldn't have gotten there in time to save them anyway._

None of them catch her. Not one of her family or friends call her on it, any of it. Her sister would as would her sister-self but one is in college and the other in love. They are busy with their own things and look at her words instead of her eyes. Not one of them understands and they all look at her with soft eyes like sharp knives. Cut, bleed, scream and oops, we're sorry.

_Sorry we didn't tell you.  
Sorry we thought you were moving on.  
Sorry we didn't think you would take it this hard.  
Sorry, sorry, sorry._

They had lied to her. Not the first time but it was one time too many. Or maybe that should be twice too many. They had known. When she had taken the call from the coven, apparently the second call, her friends had already known and they hadn't bothered to tell her. No matter. She knew the truth now. Their mouths moved and all that slipped out was blood and ashes as they lied and lied and lied.

She had gotten good at lying too. So good she had even convinced herself a time or two. Practice makes perfect and good help is hard to find. Lucky her, she had had so much of both.

They had told her she could be normal, have a normal life. That's all she had ever wanted and so she told herself she could do that now too. She could be a normal girl and do normal things and have normal non-apocalyptic problems. It was all a lie. She didn't fit in with normal no matter how hard she tried. And she had tried so, so hard. But normal couldn't take her visiondreams, her strength, her passion, her destiny.Her darkness.

The truth was in a still capital "T" and a still capital "S." No longer the only one but still the one and only. No escape from that. Not ever, ever, ever. They had said they still needed her. Find the newly called, help train them, make them into righteous killers. Hard to be a legend in your own lifetime, even harder to be one in two, but she went with it with a vengeance. Like it was all that she had now.

_It looks worse than it is.  
I'm being careful.  
You don't need to worry._

They told her she could love again. She told herself she could too, or at least she could fake it better this time. No strong but fragile farm boys here. Besides, centuries old men with dark pasts who may or may not be evil had always been her downfall. She could fall again. Except her wings were scorched feathers that could no longer lift her up high enough to fall anywhere. Especially in love.

The truth was in soft brown hair and melting chocolate eyes, sheltering body and slow smiles, a heart that was lovecomforthome though long denied to her. It was in wavy bleached lockes and fathomless blue eyes, a tilted head and arched eyebrow, a heart that could bleedbreaklove though long dead. Sometimes in dreams, only ever in dreams, it was both. Sometimes there was oil involved.

_It was just a bad daydream, a daymare.  
No I haven't been crying, just tired.  
Everything's fine._

But lies are thin cover. They provide only cold comfort. The truth will out any way it can and at the worst possible time. Too late to save them.

They had each saved her at one time or a dozen others and she had consigned them each, at different times, to hell. Or she thought they had both been in hell. She knew one of them had been there anyway. She had let them go because she had had to save the world. Again. And for her it was always again. Never conclusively or definitively or finally. For her menloversloves it was now finally and final. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

_Sorry we didn't trust them, trust you.  
Sorry we just wanted to protect you.  
Sorry we would have done everything we could if we'd known the truth.  
Sorry, sorry, sorry._

So she lied. She lied to her family and friends. Told them what they wanted to hear and watched them snatch it up with red dripping hands. Easier than trying to make them understand that she loved those men and how it felt that she wasn't there when they lost the fight. She didn't even know about it until it was long over and she had taken the coven's call about the noticeable balance shift. And exactly what caused it.

_I'm okay now.  
I forgive you.  
I don't blame you._

She lied to herself. Told herself that nothing was final with those two. There was still a chance no matter what anyone else said. And she had gotten so good at lying that eventually, in her mind, it was the truth. Bury the reality as deep as it would go. Never think about it. Don't let it out. It was the end of her world as she knew it and she felt fine. Really.

_They're still out there somewhere.  
It's not, it can't be, I won't let it be, real.  
It's not the end._

During the day she lied. For no reason at all.


	2. Night

BtVS, AtS

Story Notes: Set post Chosen and NFA. Buffy POV.  
A/N: Apologies to all for any grammatical errors or just plain wrongness. Feedback is always appreciated.  
Disclaimer: Not mine. Never gonna be mine. Not making a profit here either.

_**NIGHT**_

During the night she sits alone. They all had their own places, her family and friends. Places where they belonged, where they fit. They had people they belonged to and were able to hold in the night. Their arms weren't cold and empty. Their hands didn't cling to phantoms.

It was too difficult for her to look at them so she spent the evenings in her room alone. She would lounge around not really doing anything at all, mind free to wander, and that's when the peace- no, not peace- the numbness she had managed to find would slipslide away and she would feel it rising.

A leviathan from the deep, it rose and rose, getting bigger and closer all the time. It pushed everything else out of the way until it filled the world or her world, the world behind her eyes. She had to stop it. Because if it broke the surface, the surface would break. Shards of bright, glittering glass tearing her mind, her heart, her self to pieces.

_Push it back, push it down._

So she moved. She cleaned or danced or walked restlessly back and forth and around and around trying not to think. If she could just do everything the right way, then it would stop. Stop for ever, for good, for God's sake, pleasepleaseplease. Stop. Think of something, anything, else.

_Lie to yourself._

But nothing and none of them were ever just right. Not the movement. Not the thoughts. Not the phrases whispered over and over trying to fill her mind and push back the thing that couldn't, shouldn't, can't ever be allowed to surface into the night. To be real.

_To be the truth._

Some night she might win. Might find that one perfect combination and it will be dead- NO, not dead, NEVER think dead- it will be chained. Yes, chained is better. It will be chained far, far down never to rise again. She will be free. No longer on guard. Body busy, mind busy, keep busy. No longer searching. Able to rest.

Or not. Maybe she'll finally lose the fight and have to face the truth. And then she'll break. For the last time, for ever. None of the pieces fit right anymore and a couple of sections in the middle seem to be missing. Nothing at all like the picture on the box.

_Living a lie._

But for now it's the motion: even pace, crossed arms, dig nails into skin and draw blood if you can. And the feeling: stomach churning dread, adrenaline to fight or flight, anticipation because you can feel it rolling just under the surface. And the thought: havetostopitmakeitstop looped in your head over and over, sing what words you can remember of "These Arms of Mine" by Otis Redding. Maybe tonight, because it's been the worst night yet, a recital of "Sonnet XLIII" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. You definitely know all the words to that one. Lather, rinse and repeat until the mind runs clear.

_Make it the truth._

It only looks crazy as seen from the outside. Unless you're on the inside and then it is crazy. But it keeps her heart alive and bleeding one more night. Wait. Did I say bleeding? I meant beating- alive and beating one more night. She's winning the battles but the war's already been lost and she doesn't deal all that well with losing.

_Push it down, push it back and lie, lie, lie._

She'll eventually shake it off and pretend she forgets. She'll say she's going out to patrol but she knows she's still searching for a familiar blonde-haired form that smells like cigarettes and alcohol or a dark shadow that says her name, just her name, in that milk chocolate voice. They'll find her if they can. God knows she hasn't found a trace of either of them. Not that that means anything, mind you. They've both come back from impossible situations before- soulessness, hell, insanity, flaming death. Can't keep a good man down, especially if he's a vampire.

Finally she'll stop for the night and maybe she'll be able to sleep if the nightmares don't come. Nightmares in which they are bleeding and broken and calling out to her, thinking she has forsaken them. Nightmares in which she tries to run and stand beside them but her feet are held fast and her ears, mouth, and eyes are covered by hands that are all too loving and familiar.

Tonight before she climbs into bed she'll mark another day off on the calendar and make believe she doesn't notice herself counting. Make believe there's no event she started counting from. Make believe there's no reason that her family and friends won't look her in the eye.

No reason at all.


	3. Somewhere In Between

**Story Notes:** Final chapter (I think) of Truth & Lies. Set post Chosen and NFA. Buffy POV.  
**A/N:** This was an unexpected chapter. The idea just wouldn't leave me alone and I'm blaming it on listening to "San Paolo Rain" one too many times. Thanks to ShinodaBear and Ares for encouragement and a complete lack of sniggering and finger pointing. Apologies to all for any grammatical errors or just plain wrongness. Feedback is always appreciated.  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Never gonna be mine. Not making a profit here either.

_**SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN**_

Somewhere in the between time, in the grey world between light and dark and day and night, that was where she now lived. She had made her home in the thinning place where reality and fantasy were one and the same; where lies became truth and there was no such thing as never. Anything was possible in the fluid time between one state and another and any dreams she had might, just might, come true.

The day was too bright for her to live in. She was constantly blinded by plastic smiles that swallowed screams so loud her head hurt. The light was too sharp and cutting and too many eyes watched her without seeing. Too many hands touched her and the bruises they left were hidden in the light of the sun.

So many people she used to know had lived in the sunlight. It hurt to see them and know that she didn't know them anymore; that maybe she had never known them at all. The people whose faces they wore were long dead. The kind of dead you don't come back from. The kind of dead that decays slowly; that festers and rots and should just be buried so that everyone can finally see the elephant in the room and go home.

The night was too dark for her to live in. Silence echoed in all the chambers of a heart that was once filled with laughter between friends and secrets that could only be whispered between lovers. The night was cold and empty and she was only a ghost that walked in a world full of the dreams of the living.

Too many people she used to know had lived among the shadows. She could no longer do her duty because this one had brown eyes and this one had blue. This one and this one and that one had light brown hair or dark brown or maybe black, but she couldn't take the chance now could she? So many of them were white blonde and light blonde and dark blonde or maybe it was light brown. She didn't want to be wrong and it was too easy to see her lost loves hidden in the blurred shadows of faces never touched by the sun.

In the between time, in the thinning time, she could rest. The grey covered everything too bright and too dark and she could lose herself to dreams. She didn't have to act a part for which she no longer had a script. How could she remember her lines if she had no script?

Whether in the day or in the night, everyone acted as if things were just the same; as if nothing had changed. She hadn't changed, of course she hadn't. She never changed. She wasn't allowed. She was only supposed to be whatever she had once been long ago. But what if she didn't know how to get back to that girl she had once been? What if she couldn't remember the way?

You always take string into the labyrinth if you want to find your way back out. Everybody knows that. But she had lost her strings and the compass just spun madly. Every step had only carried her further in. She had thought that if she just persevered she would find that girl, the one she had been before, waiting at the heart of it to lead her out. Instead, all she had found was a great echoing emptiness. That girl must've gotten tired of waiting and left.

That girl had walked in sunlight. She had laughed and played and death had never touched her. Never even came close. That girl hadn't lost anything. Not yet. That girl had friends who would never lie to her. That girl's friends hadn't known how. But they would learn though, wouldn't they? And they had been very fast learners.

That girl had walked in moonlight. She had run and jumped and was never afraid of the dark. The things in the dark couldn't touch her. Never even came close. That girl hadn't lost anything. Not yet. That girl had loves that would never leave her and would never die. That girl's loves hadn't known how. But they would learn though, wouldn't they? And she had learned with them.

She had learned how to lose herself somewhere in the grey, the thinning place, the between. She had learned how to spin lies into truth and bought herself a tower built on dead dreams and ashes deep within the labyrinth. That girl had never learned how to wait, but she had. She had learned that her heart didn't have to stop beating for her to die. She had died and been resurrected twice before but they say the third time's the charm. She just wished it wouldn't take so long. She had places to go and people to see.

ooo


End file.
